Pension Board Rejects Ex-Police Chief’s Disability Application

By Laura Glesby and Mona Mahadevan, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — The city’s Police and Fire Pension Fund (P&F) board voted Thursday to reject former Police Chief Karl Jacobson’s application for a service-connected disability pension.

The board members — Mayor Justin Elicker, Evelise Ribeiro, fire union President Miguel Rosado, Darrell Brooks, Lt. Brian McDermott, and Melissa Desmond — met online via Zoom.

The board members did not publicly discuss the substance of Jacobson’s application or the reasons behind their unanimous “no” vote during Thursday’s meeting.

Jacobson retired on Jan. 5, immediately after New Haven’s three assistant chiefs confronted him about stealing from a fund intended for paying confidential informants in connection with a gambling problem. The former police chief is now facing charges of two counts of Larceny in the First Degree by Defrauding a Public Community for allegedly stealing $85,000 from police department and the Police Activity League (PAL).

According to the pension fund board’s meeting agenda Thursday, Jacobson is “already receiving an age annuity retirement for which [he] qualified and did not require trustee review, discretion, or vote.”

Per state law (CGA Sec. 1-110), the state’s attorney general can ask a Superior Court judge to revoke or reduce the pension of a state or local official who is found to have stolen public funds. The attorney general can do so if the official has pleaded guilty, pleaded nolo contendere (no contest), or been convicted of committing or aiding the embezzlement of public funds, or another felony related to public corruption. Jacobson has not yet entered a plea in his criminal case. The law does not explicitly mention any distinctions affecting a disability pension.

Jacobson had submitted an application for his pension to be classified as a “service-connected disability pension,” indicating that he sustained a disability on the job. The contents or nature of the application are not currently public. Jacobson and his legal representative did not respond to requests for comment.

On Thursday, the pension board discussed the application in executive session. Subsequently, the board publicly voted to reject the application without any further discussion.

Asked about the decision later on Thursday, Elicker said that he could not disclose the details of the application. The pension board was tasked with evaluating whether Jacobson met the criteria for eligibility, he said, and the board made its ultimate decision based solely on a determination that the former police chief did not qualify.

For any applicant, “if they did meet the eligibility requirement and we voted no, we would open ourselves up to a potential lawsuit. We’re analyzing, ‘Is the person disabled or are they not disabled? And are they disabled to a point where they cannot do the job, or not?'” Elicker said. “In this case, without getting into the details of the medical records, the pension board’s view is that the former chief did not meet the eligibility requirements.”

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.